Hubspot vs Marketo- Which Does Your Company Need?

by Gregg Crystal Aug 20, 2014

IMG_0891Marketing automation, inbound marketing, content marketing and email marketing.

There are all types of marketing that are used extensively on the internet by businesses trying to get the exposure they need to sell their services and products.

The different types of marketing and the tools that are often used to handle them differ on several levels, such as Hubspot vs Marketo.

These two programs are often confused by potential users, along with their counterpart marketing strategies.

Today we are going to take a look at the differences, to help you choose the program that is best for your needs.

Hubspot vs Marketo- Why Choose Hubspot?

Hubspot is an inbound marketing software. Inbound marketing is based on the idea of providing all of the information your potential lead needs in order to finally make a purchase. The transparency and control you give the reader is highly effective in earning their trust and business.

Hubspot users are often small businesses, however their software can function with much larger firms that have additional software programs as Hubspot integrates with many vendors. The nice thing about using Hubspot is that the cost is tiered for beginning, company and enterprise users.

Generally, companies who need to generate interested leads will use Hubspot and the inbound marketing strategy to accomplish this task.

This isn't to say that Hubspot cannot be used for marketing automation as it absolutely can be used that way. However, it does not include the level of features Marketo offers for lead nurturing and marketing automation. 

Some companies may find a happy medium between using both Hubspot for lead generation and traffic, as well as Marketo for leading nurture and marketing automation.

When Is Marketo The Best Choice?

Marketo is a premier software for lead nurturing, marketing automation and lead scoring.

While Marketo does offer educational material on how to use both inbound marketing and content marketing to generate leads, the focus for us is on how you work with those leads. 

Marketo makes it very easy for your company to handle thousands of leads at once.

From collecting leads through forms on your website and landing pages, to assigning scores that sales can use in vetting leads, everything can be handled inside this software. 

Your company can put rules into place and when a lead subscribes to your emails, they will receive a score based on the activity they've taken on your site.

This can include the pages they've read, the other items they have downloaded, and how long they visited. 

The lead nurturing system can continue to automate the sales process by continually educating your subscribers and changing what content they see based on their continued actions on your website.

You'll be able to write emails, distinguish when leads' scores are increased, and even alert sales when the lead score is high enough. 

Event marketing can also be automated by the rules you set for each campaign. If the subscriber indicates they are going to an event, or they attended an online webinar, they can be switched to a different nurturing process. 

Hubspot vs Marketo -  How Do They Compare?

In summary, Hubspot is an inbound marketing program that helps your company generate leads. It can handle lead scoring and nurturing but doesn't have the intricacies you might want when dealing with thousands of leads at a time, not to mention dozens of sales people.

Marketo, is a marketing automation program, used to nurture, score and automate thousands of leads at once. Alerts can be sent for the sales department, specifics can be set up to drill down the differences in your leads and give you the custom features you need to keep sales updated.

Hubspot- generate leads on an automated basis.

Marketo- handle massive amounts of leads automatically.

Questions? 

We've worked extensively with both programs and can help you decide if you need one or the other, or both.

Give us a call and we'll help you make the best decision.

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